Tuesday, August 18, 2015

The Union Jack of the United Kingdom can be proudly found throughout the world, include here at the Six Pence Pub in my hometown of Savannah, GA, with theHome Nation flags of England, Scotland, and Wales and the flag of the United States.Image Credit: Wesley Hutchins

Flags – they can mean many things to many people. They can
represent pride and instill patriotism in some, while also causing an affront
to others – and these emotions can be felt by people living within the same
country.

Not since 1997 has a British athletics competition vest
failed to include the flag. For Olympic long jumper Greg Rutherford, it was “wrong
and ridiculous” to have the flag omitted, and he took his complaint to Twitter,
where he tweeted a photo of the new athletics kit.

Rutherford, known to be popular and forthright amongst
members of the athletics squad, further stated that he was “proud to be British”,
and lambasted the new kit – calling it “terrible” and no longer British. He
also claimed that there was not one athlete he had spoken to who had wanted the
change, and that everyone wanted the Union Flag on the vest. Among his Twitter followers who
agreed with this was British steeplechaser Eilish McColgan, who remarked that
the vest looked “really odd” without the flag and – as with Rutherford –
accused UK Athletics of representing itself, rather than Britain.

UK Athletics is the governing body of the sport of athletics
in the United Kingdom, and its CEO Nick de Vos stated that the objective of the
new kit was not to eradicate the Union Flag (which is still displayed on the
shorts and socks) but to promote the brand of Team GB and British Athletics
leading up to the World Championships being hosted by London in 2017, and that by
having “Great Britain” spelled out across the vest, they were actually taking a
cue from the success of Team GB at the 2012 London Olympics. In this sense, it
was more about the team than the flag.

This view taken by the governing body is not entirely off
the mark. While having the flag on uniforms is preferable in athletic
competitions, it is not necessary – especially if the name of the country and
its colors are present as part of the scheme. For my part as an American, I do
not look for Old Glory on the uniform of athletes, and with regard to the last
summer Olympics, I paid much more attention to the performance of the squads
representing Team USA, whose uniforms typically displayed small US flags (probably not much larger than 2" x 3"). The substantial prominence of the flag came from the USA fans and its
appearance during victory laps and medal ceremonies.

So flags can become overrated in the overall scheme of
certain things and in certain contexts, and if the statement by UK Athletics
had been the last word of the controversy, this post would have stopped here.

But Jonathan Jones decided to take it to another level when he wrote in The Guardian that he had “sympathy” for the kit designers, who he
claimed had created an “elegant” vest with the national colors, while dispensing with “that
jagged, explosive, aggressive flag.”

Jones, an art columnist for the newspaper, insisted
that his criticism was not about “imperial arrogance” or a “coercive union that
keeps Scotland in its place”, but instead had to do with how the flag looked, and
he opined that the flag was “cluttered” with sharp-angled lines which implied
fragmentation as opposed to unity, as well as being “heavy and overbearing,
forceful and strident.”

Furthermore, Jones asserted that while the flag had meaning
when Britannia ruled the waves – and in particular, when fighting in battles
such as Waterloo and Trafalgar – it was “crap” today, and that its “sheer
pompous ugliness unconsciously damages the image of the union” in a way that
gives a “psychological boost” to the separatists who wish to break up Britain.

For this reason, he suggested that a new flag should be
designed to save the United Kingdom and make the British people proud to be
British and love their country again.

However, I find that the commentary by Jones – while a bit
refreshing for coming from an artistic point of view – was off the mark and at
odds with the Union Flag which I and millions of people around the world have
come to know.

The Union Flag is – quite simply – one of the most beautiful
flags in the world, and that beauty is in part derived from the fact that it is,
as Jones writes, “a compromise, a merging of different national symbols.” It
brings together a vibrant blue field and a white diagonal cross – the Saltire of St.
Andrew representing Scotland, with the red Saltire of St. Patrick for
Northern Ireland, and the red Cross of St. George representing
England, to forge one flag for one country – the United Kingdom.

It is therefore a flag of unity, and James VI of Scotland
knew exactly what he was doing in the early 1600’s when he moved to have the
flags of Scotland and England merged when he ascended to the English throne as
James I, and therefore became the first man to rule all Britain. The royal union
eventually led to the political, economic, and cultural union which has thus
far endured for over 300 years, and the flag has become a symbol of the nations
of Britain joining together as a single country.

This is in similar fashion to the United States, where the
stripes represent the original thirteen British colonies which became independent
states and came together as one, while the fifty stars represent the fifty states
of our current Union – all in the spirit of E
Pluribus Unum.

My hand-made Christmas ornament featuring Old Gloryon one side and the Union Jack on the other. Image Credit: Wesley Hutchins

Indeed, the idea of several diverse areas melding together is especially true of
Britain, where various tribes eventually merged into larger and expanding
kingdoms, and resulted in the country that we know today. Those three crosses
come together as an expression of that unity, as well the possibilities that
can arise from that unity of peoples from so many cultures and backgrounds.

It must be made very clear that the Union Flag is not the
flag of any one part of the UK, nor is it the flag of any one ethnic group, nor
is it the flag of any one religious group, or of any one racial group, nor is
it the flag of any one political party, group, or philosophy. It is most definitely
not the flag of “Westminster”, and neither is it a factional or sectarian flag.

It is the flag of the United Kingdom and thus the flag of
all Britons, from Inverness to Southampton, Belfast to Dover, Berwick to Cardiff,
Anglesey to Glasgow, Land’s End to Shetland, and everywhere else in between.
This includes people who can trace their families to the Normans, Vikings,
Anglo-Saxons, Romans, and the various Celtic tribes (all of which are quite interrelated, anyway), as well as the people who are
Britons of the first generation in our time. As such, it is a flag of “relentless dynamism” – a term used by Jones – as the country has changed time and time again while also preserving elements of continuity.

It is not “owned” by anybody, just as the Saltire in
Scotland is not the flag of the Scottish nationalists, for it is the flag of
all of Scotland, including those who believe that Scotland should continue to
be part of the United Kingdom, and who look to the Union Flag as the one that
they share with the people of the rest of the Britain.

Some may disagree with me on this point, but quite simply,
it is my belief that the Union Flag serves the purpose as the national flag of
the United Kingdom, just as the Stars and Stripes does as the national flag of
the United States – full stop, and it is doubtful that the nationalists will
start looking more favorably at the Union with an entirely redesigned flag.

The one modification I would perhaps make would be to find a
way to include Wales, which had already been annexed into England at the time of the unions with Scotland and Ireland, so that it is effectively represented by St. George's Cross. It is not – at least from what I can see – a terribly
important issue, but it would be nice to have St. David’s Cross or the Red Dragon incorporated
into the design, so that Wales can be represented as an integral part of the
Union, as it always has been. My own personal preference would be to have the Red Dragon in the middle
to preserve the overall red, white, and blue color scheme of the flag (since St. David's cross is yellow).

After all, the Union Flag has long been established and
cemented as an easily and hugely recognized symbol of the United Kingdom across
the globe. It is powerfully iconic in its representation of Brand Britain everywhere,
whether it is featured on clothes, food packaging, automobiles, ships, airplanes,
various forms of media, mobile device cases, pillows and bed sheets, wallpaper,
Christmas ornaments, stuffed animals, desktop backgrounds, posters, logos and insignia's for various organizations, and several other things which people use
or come into contact with everyday.

The flag is flown in admiration for Britain and to denote
places, people, and things that are British, such as the Scottish pub in my
hometown of Savannah which flies it, along with the Saltire and the Red Lion
Rampant (the Royal Standard of Scotland) on its premises, as well as another pub which flies the crosses of St.
Andrew and St. George, the Red Dragon, the Union Jack, and the Stars and
Stripes. When one sees the Union Flag around the world, he or she knows what it
is, and no questions need be asked.

From this point of view, the true measure of the global
influence of a Union Flag is not such much about how many other countries copy
its design when in the process of designing their own, but about how many people
admire it and choose to use it in admiration of and respect for the United Kingdom.

When I see the Union Flag, I do see the Saltire of St.
Andrew, St. Patrick’s Cross, and St. George’s Cross, and through them, I see
the countries of the UK and their contributions to Britain’s history, its
achievements, themes, values, issues, tensions, paradoxes, and
contradictions, as well as the triumphs and tragedies, good and bad, joys and
sorrows, and times of unity and division, as well as its future – all wrapped up into
one flag to represent the United Kingdom as a whole in its beautifully complex tapestry.

Alongside the idea of abank holiday in commemoration of the entire United Kingdom, the Union Flag ought to be formally codified into
law as the official flag of the United Kingdom, and as such, should fly
from all public buildings at all times, alongside the flags of each Home Nation
where appropriate (i.e., it and the Saltire side-by-side at public buildings in
Scotland). There is no reason why this cannot be done, and indeed, the Union
Flag should not be in competition with the Saltire or the other Home Nation
flags. Except for Wales, it is composed of flags representing the Home Nations,
and as such, it complements them and denotes their rightful place in the
overall context of the Union.

This is why I see unity instead of division in a
flag of “relentless dynamism” which befits the robust, outward-looking, and
tolerant country that Britain is and should always aspire to be, as well the
hope that Britain can sort out its issues – constitutional and otherwise – as
one.

Sunday, August 16, 2015

The goal for our world is to ensure that another Hiroshima (left) or Nagasaki (right) never happens again.Image Credit: George R. Caron and Charles Levy (Public Domain) / Combination by Binksternet via Wikimedia Commonscc

Seventy years ago, World War II came to an end with the
surrender of Japan, though it was not until
September 2nd when the formal documents of surrender were signed aboard the USS Missouri.

For many – particularly in Europe – it was the end of a nearly
six year long ordeal that had begun with the invasion of Poland by Adolf Hitler
and Nazi Germany on September 1, 1939. In the Pacific, the conflict had its
roots in the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria in China, while for the United
States, the war was brought on by the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan on
December 7, 1941.

But regardless of when hostilities started for different
parts of the world, when Japan’s surrender was announced, everyone knew that it
was all over, and that there was peace once again. The day was marked with euphoric
and rapturous celebration, with enormous crowds gathered in New York – where
thousands jammed Times Square;London – where the future Queen Elizabeth and
her sister joined the masses around Buckingham Palace and Piccadilly Square;
Paris – where the people celebrated their liberation from the Nazi regime, and
in so many other places (big and small) throughout the world.

It became known as Victory over Japan (VJ) Day and seventy
years later, it remains one of the most iconic and significant moments in
history, and the commemorations have rightly honored the fallen who gave the
ultimate sacrifice for the world in which we live today. They have also honored
the people who made it back home to tell their stories – people whose numbers
are dwindling day by day. They have also provided a period of reflection on the
war and what it means for us today going forward.

This particularly includes the way in which the war was
ended, for the use of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to force Japan
into an unconditional surrender was one of the most controversial aspects of
war, which has been hotly debated ad
nausuem since they were dropped and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of
thousands of people.

Was it necessary? Was there another way to end the war? Were
the casualties worth it? Would the world have been safer if not for nuclear
weapons?

I will not discuss these in detail here as they go beyond the scope of this post.
However, it should be noted that the dropping of the bombs by the United States
likely resulted in a more swift end to the war than had the Allies been forced
to resort to other measures, such as a full scale invasion of the Japanese
islands, which would have dwarfed the Allied effort on D-Day the year before.

Mercifully, these were the first and last times that nuclear
weapons had been used for warfare in our history. Their immediate destructive
power, combined with the long-term health effects, have arguably helped to
ensure that there has not been a global conflict on the scale of the Second
World War, because everyone knows that such a conflict will likely involve nuclear
weapons, which were eventually obtained by the Soviets and other major world
powers soon after.

But it was not just the proliferation of nuclear weapons
that became an issue as more countries obtained them; it was also the fact that
they were becoming increasingly powerful – like the hydrogen bomb – so that multiple Nagasaki’s could be
contained within only one of them. Worse still were the dizzying number of weapons as
the Western powers lead by the United States and the Communist powers lead by
the USSR gathered vast stockpiles, so that by 1960, there were
enough of them to destroy the entire world six times over.

It was a policy of Mutually Assured Destruction (with the appropriately
acronym M.A.D.), and Japan’s emperor, Hirohito, alluded to this in his radio
address to his people announcing the surrender of the Japanese Empire, when he
talked of a “new and terrible weapon with the power to destroy many innocent
lives and do incalculable damage” which would not only destroy Japan, but also “lead
to the total extinction of human civilization.”

Not only was this arms race mad, but it was also terribly
expensive – with the cost of building and maintaining these weapons and their
massive support systems eating deep into national budgets. At some point,
people began asking: “why do we have all these mass-destruction devices”? It
became increasingly apparent that there were too many of them and – quite sensibly
– that it would be virtually impossible to use all of them anyway.

And so began the long and gradual draw down of these gravely
dangerous weapons. From a high of nearly 70,000 active warheads in the mid-1980’s,
as of last year, there were only around 4,000 active and 6,000 inactive
warheads – making for a total of just over 10,000 nuclear warheads in the world
– with the United States and Russia owning the lions share of these, and in
time, it is hoped that the numbers will decline still further.

For its part, the United Kingdom possesses 225 of these weapons,
of which 160 are currently active, and the country exercises its capability in
a sea-based capacity via the Trident program of nuclear submarines operated by
the Royal Navy based at Faslane along Gare Loch near the River Clyde – about 30 miles
from Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city.

Nuclear weapons in general have been contentious
for several decades ever since the development of the Polaris system in the
Holy Loch in the 1960’s, and has particularly been used by the SNP as
a means to advance their goal of breaking up Britain. Throughout the referendum
campaign last year, the pro-independence campaign and its supporters were
peddling the idea that with independence, Scotland could get rid of Trident (while still being part of NATO, a nuclear-tipped alliance) and
save billions of pounds to be used for purposes such as health and education.

Scotland
voted to keep the Union together, but the SNP has been consistent in their
opposition to Trident – with members referring to it as “obscene” and an
example of “Wastemonster” spending money on the wrong priorities. Still others
object to the Trident submarines and warheads being based in Scotland, and
believe that they were placed there so as to be far away from England and
London in particular. A common refrain is: “If Westminster likes Trident so
much, why don’t they place them along the River Thames?”

In truth, Trident’s location has more to do with strategic
ability more than anything, for Faslane and the area along the lower Clyde is
the best deep-water harbor in Britain facing the Atlantic and is well-suited
for the submarines to slip in and out of the Atlantic with a lower possibility of
being detected. This has nothing to do with treating Scotland unfairly or putting
Scotland in a position to be bombed so that London can be spared, for the
reality is that given the UK’s size, a modern nuclear weapon – with long-term health effects included –could wipe out
much of the country, including the “protected” capital city, so it matters not where
Trident is located in this regard. However, it does matter that it is placed in
a location that gives the Royal Navy the best strategic advantage, and that
location just happens to be Faslane.

Furthermore, the much-touted £100 billion cost for the new
generation of Trident is to be spread over 30 years, and during that time, a
lot of that money will be going to maintenance and paying the employee's – many of
them with specialized engineering skills – who earn their keep at Faslane. Over
the course of Trident’s lifetime, this will result in tens of billions of pounds
being injected into Scotland’s economy, and in particular, the local economy
around Faslane as money goes into paying for food, housing, mortgages,
transportation, clothing, and other needs and desires. Some of the money is paid toward taxes and eventually finds its way into the coffers of the Scottish Government to fund the activities under its control.

So when the SNP talks
about opposing Trident, they are effectively talking about opposing a critical piece of the economy, and with no concrete plan on what to do with
the workers who have been trained in this area.

Of course, there are some people who will oppose nuclear
weapons and Trident in particular no matter what. They point to the destruction
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and believe that such weapons – with their
destructive potential – have no place in the world at all, and need to be
abolished. The SNP in particular wants Britain to unilaterally disarm.

This is a noble goal, and I for one would love to live in a
world without nukes or any weapons of mass destruction. However, unilateral disarmament
is unhelpful because there will still be others with the weapons, and so long
as that’s the case, Britain should hold on to Trident. It’s not about what
Britain can do with the weapons, but rather about the very existence of the
weapons and the technology. This sentiment was expressed when General Omar Bradley
discussed developing the H-bomb with President Harry S. Truman, and said that he
could conceive of no military objectives that could be achieved with it, except
for utter death, ruin, and desolation. He further said that these were not
weapons, but “instruments of genocide.” However, he advised Truman to go ahead
with the bomb because “for the other side to have it, and for us not to have it,
would be intolerable.”

It may seem paradoxical, but the whole point of having the
nukes is to prevent from having to use them (and to prevent others from using
them against you), which is why it is called a “deterrent” and why there is an argument
that full scale global wars have been prevented since 1945 because of this.

However, even if nuclear weapons were abolished from the
face of the Earth, the technology and know-how will remain, and you can bet
that somebody somewhere will want to use these at some point (unless you were
to eliminate all nuclear physicists and burn every piece of written reference to
nuclear technology).

The best that we can do is to promote multi-lateral disarmament
among all countries that have nuclear weapons, and to prevent other countries
from obtaining them altogether. As has been mentioned above, there has already
been a massive amount of disarmament in the last thirty years since the height
of the Cold War. Perhaps by the end of the 30 year period for the new
generation of Trident, the number of warheads will be reduced further to the
point that Britain may no longer need a deterrent, or if it does, then it may
be a scaled-down and less costly one. The same idea applies to the US, Russia,
France, China, and other nuclear powers, so that the threat of nuclear conflict
is curbed and so that scarce resources can be put to other uses.

In the end, no one likes nuclear weapons. I repeat, no one,
and I look forward to a world without them. Indeed, perhaps it would be nice to
go back in time and prevent their creation. However, we must live with the
reality that they are with us, and we have to do our best to ensure that that are
never used again for any purpose.

For Britain itself, the country’s real influence may be more
thoroughly expressed through its soft power, though it should always keep its
hands close to its tools of hard power – both conventional and unconventional –
in case they should ever be needed. In other words, “speak softly, but
carry a big stick.”

A recent example is the recent nuclear deal with Iran,
which among other things, proposes to open Iran up to trade with Western powers
(including Britain, which helped to negotiate the deal) in the hope that this
trade will eventually lift the Iranian economy, foster better relations, and
therefore make Iran less likely to pursue nuclear weapons in the first place,
and also make nuclear war in general less likely.

If Iran reneges and fails to hold up its end, then Britain
and the other powers may have to reach for the “hard power” options, including
the use of nuclear weapons, in order to deal with Iran. If however, the deal
succeeds, this will be good for Iran, good for Britain, and good for the world,
so that hopefully the horrific events 70 years ago remain unique in the long
view of human history and so that a sustained peace can be achieved.

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Among the
unfortunate aspects about Scotland in recent years has been the apparent
stasis in which the country finds itself regarding the politics of the
constitution in general, and the fixation on the issue of independence in
particular, as opposed to day-to-day issues such as education and health, which
are the responsibility of the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood, which is
controlled by the SNP – now in its ninth year in government since coming to
power in 2007.

Since that
time, the political spectrum in Scotland has changed dramatically from the
traditional Left-Right battles between Labour, the Conservatives, and Liberal
Democrats to the new pro-Union and pro-separatist clashes between the SNP and
almost everybody else. Thanks to the referendum last year and the residual
energies emanating from it, politics in Scotland has become defined by whether
you support maintaining the United Kingdom or support Scotland breaking away
and ending the Union.

Thus far,
the SNP has been the only party to benefit from this political shift, with its
clarion call of “standing up for Scotland” and all but campaigning on the idea
that independence will solve all the ills facing Scotland, which is a fanciful
notion, but one in which its members and media acolytes believe. Further, as
Alex Massie pointed out in The Times,
SNP members not only believe that “everything [will] bloom after independence”,
but that “it is unreasonable to expect anything to bloom before independence.” One
Nationalist with whom I have come in contact personified this thinking when he basically
said that Scotland could not go back to Left-Right politics until independence
was achieved.

This
somewhat narcissistic comment gives a window into the thinking of many a
Nationalist: come what may, nothing gets in the way of the cause of Scottish
independence, which effectively means that for some people, critical matters
such as education and health are of little relevance in the grand scheme of
achieving their ultimate goal. It also means – to the frustration of the
opposition parties – that the SNP seems to get a pass on its record as a party
of government, despite legitimate criticisms regarding A&E waiting times,
mortality rates being 19% higher than in Northeast England, over a third of S2
students not attaining expected numeracy levels, and several ongoing issues
with the newly centralized police force which was created by the SNP
government.

Time and
time again, the opposition parties at Holyrood – the Conservatives, Labour, and
the Liberal Democrats – have pointed out these deficiencies in the SNP’s
record, which under normal circumstances, should see the SNP paying a price at
the polls. As of yet however, nothing has stuck as the SNP has become a Telfon
party which has propagated the idea that Holyrood needs “more powers” on top of
what it already has, as well as the powers already coming into force via the
2012 Scotland Act, and the powers that are on the way via the Scotland Bill
currently going through the political processes.

Eventually,
it wants complete separation from the rest of the UK, but until such time, is
perfectly content with blaming others for the performance (or lack thereof) of
the government under its watch for the past eight years. After all they say,
Scotland is still part of the United Kingdom and therefore not in charge of its
destiny, and if it’s not in charge of its destiny, then of course, they will
continue to lay blame at the UK Government for anything that goes wrong in
Scotland (but claim credit for what goes right in Scotland), despite the UK
Government not having any direct influence on Scottish policy in several areas.

However,
the blame game is not just reserved toward the UK Government and Parliament at
Westminster; it is also used against individuals such as oil baron Algy Cluff,
who asked Scottish Government ministers if their moratorium on hydraulic fracturing
(“fracking” for short) applied to his plans to extract coal gas from underneath
the Firth of Forth and then warned of the “potentially devastating”
consequences of the moratorium on his company’s plans for investment in
Scotland (to the tune of £250 million). As told by Massie in his column, both
the Energy Minister Fergus Ewing and Communities Minister Alex Neil gave Cluff
their blessing on the grounds that coal gasification is not the same as
fracking. This led to a vilification of Cluff by SNP MP’s and members who
accused him of “guilt-tripping” the ministers involved, but apparently sparing
criticism against the ministers themselves for making the decision.

This is
but only one instance of the SNP getting a pass from its own members even when
it goes against their wishes, but it also shows how the SNP – far from being a
party led by committed idealists, come what may – is actually pragmatic when it
comes to certain things, such as clearing away a potential obstacle for Cluff
to invest in Scotland and therefore create jobs. Indeed, the reason why the SNP
came to power was because it positioned itself as a moderate party that would
provide competent and pragmatic administration, which Scotland’s middle classes
would find acceptable. It talked less about independence and more about
bread-and-butter issues facing people every day, and it gained trust along the
way, especially as the other (UK-wide) parties lost trust.

This was
especially true of the Labour Party, which dominated Scottish politics
before
the rise of the SNP, and which was the primary casualty of the SNP’s
march to
having 56 of Scotland’s 59 MP’s during the General Election in May. A
common
refrain from some former Labour voters is that the party (despite
winning three successive elections and keeping the Tories out of
government for 13 years) longer represented
them, had abandoned its left-wing principles, became Tory-lite under
Tony Blair
and Gordon Brown, and worse – had stood “shoulder-to-shoulder” with the
Tories
as part of the Better Together campaign to save the Union. Labour in
short, had
left them, not the other way around. In its place came the SNP, which
claimed
that it was the true alternative to both the Tories and Labour –
offering up a
bold anti-austerity platform against the Tories which Labour had failed
to
make. Not only that, but the SNP was said to be committed to preserving
and
expanding the welfare state Labour had largely created, against
privatization, for
increased government spending, and a more robust and activist
government.

The SNP in
short, was the bolder and more idealistic version of what Labour was supposed
to be, which stood for socialism/social democracy and did not compromise itself
for the sake of power, or even it seems, political or economic circumstances.

But just
last week, it was revealed by The
Guardianthat the Scottish Government was turning toward more (not less) private financing and private control of several high-profile capital projects,
including a bypass around Aberdeen, because it had run afoul of EU rules which are
designed to measure public spending and prohibit governments from using “private
finance and private contracts to avoid putting major public assets on their
national accounts, potentially as a backdoor route to cutting government
liabilities.” Based on the rules coming from the EU’s statistics agency
Eurostat, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) classified a bypass road around
Aberdeen – the biggest project at £1.5 billion – as a publicly owned and
controlled project ‘due to the Scottish government’s share in the economic
rewards.’

As a
result according to The Guardian, Finance Secretary John Swinney was forced to
seek “a £300m contingency loan from the UK Treasury and set aside £150m of
Scottish government money to cover Holyrood’s potential liabilities until the [Aberdeen]
project is moved off the public books”, as well as to launch a review of his government’s overall private financing scheme, known as the Non-Profit
Distribution (NDP) model, which allows private contractors to fund large-scale
capital projects, but also allows Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) – a public corporation
of the Scottish Government – to cap private sector profits and feature lower
fixed interest rates. But with the ONS ruling, along with its determination
that Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) companies set up by SFT to run and control
these projects are not private entities, the “new model will increase overall
costs and public-sector debt, and increase private-sector control of the
schemes for the lifetime of every project, which can last for 32 years or
more.”

Altogether,
this was an embarrassing moment for the SNP – not only because its funding scheme is in tatters for running afoul
of EU rules to suit its political interests (i.e., being able to spend more
without going to the taxpayer or taking on debt) – but also because it now finds itself actually
turning to more private financing and control of big projects – the very thing it
had criticized previous Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition governments of doing
at Holyrood.

However, I
can imagine that the SNP will simply say that this is just another example of
Westminster failing to stand up for Scotland’s interests (never minding the
fact that the ONS ruling has similar implications for UK Government projects
throughout the country). In this case, it would be Scotland’s interests with
regard to the EU (because these are EU rules, after all), the organization
which the SNP claims Scots embrace more lovingly than the rest of the UK – so much so, that they have threatened to use the potential withdrawal of the UK from the EU without a
majority of Scots as a wedge issue to create an excuse for holding another referendum.

Meanwhile,
many of their supporters likely won’t protest for much of the same reason –
Westminster’s fault, not Holyrood’s – as well as for the reason that they
probably believe that this is a distraction from their foremost agenda:
securing independence. After all, this is a life-long cause for some people,
and the cause justifies almost anything, which runs counter to the idea of the
SNP being a progressive party of deeply-held left-wing social and economic
principles, and shows itself to be like any other party which will make
necessary sacrifices to achieve its aims. The membership will forgive the
party, so long as they are on the road to independence.

Indeed, some
have become so converted to the cause that they are now upset at the idea that the
SNP has to focus (or at least, is seen to be focused) on things other than
independence, like governing at Holyrood and having its 56 MP’s at Westminster
concentrating on UK-wide matters, especially when they effect Scotland. Former
SNP member Delia Forrest told Buzzfeed that she decided not to renew her membership after the party broke its stance on voting on English fox hunting. She complained that
it had become a “mainstream UK party even apparently recruiting English
memberships”, had too many career politicians, and was “playing a game of
one-upmanship with David Cameron and neglecting independence.” For her and
others, the SNP is not pro-independence enough, and another person believed
that if Nicola Sturgeon fails to offer another referendum on independence in
the party’s manifesto going into the Holyrood elections next year, thousands
will desert the party and Sturgeon risks splitting the SNP and overall
independence movement.

The reality however – much as it
may prove uncomfortable for some people – is that while the SNP may be popular,
its landmark policy and raison d’etre is not, or at least not popular enough
for Sturgeon to call for a second referendum on it with the realistic expectation that the SNP will
win next time around. Most polling since the referendum (providing it can be
trusted) has shown either a pro-Union majority or a tie, and with those odds,
it is unlikely that Sturgeon will call for another referendum so soon after the
last one, which was held less than a year ago. Such a move may prove to be
reckless and if the Union wins out in a second referendum within the next five
years, it may also prove truly fatal for the independence cause for a
generation at least.

Becoming aggressively fixated on
independence also risks taking the SNP back to the days when it was a fringe
single-issue organization, not a legitimate party of government, and the
leadership of the SNP knows that this will likely lose them votes in Middle
Scotland.

For now though – whether on coal
gasification, the mess of private funding for public projects, or the issue of another
referendum – the SNP has thus far proven remarkably effective in keeping its
members in line, from MP’s on down. “Internal dissent” claims Massie, “is all
but non-existent because dissent might compromise the quest for independence.”

It is for this same reason that
if left-wing MP Jeremy Corbyn is elected to succeed Ed Miliband as leader of
the Labour Party, Kenny Farquharson believes that the SNP – having made a
career of excoriating Labour for “abandoning” its left-wing and progressive
principles – will
simply change the narrative to say that Labour is unelectable as a
legitimate party of government throughout the United Kingdom. Forget all
the rhetoric about “Red Tories” and Labour failing to take a progressive and
anti-austerity stance because this would not likely apply under a Corbyn
leadership. Instead, they will raise the prospect of perpetual Tory government
from Downing Street beyond 2020, and this may prove to be too much to bear for
some Scottish Labour voters, who will be greatly seduced into believing that
the only way to get away from the wicked Tories is independence.

It would certainly takes some chutzpah
for the SNP to basically forsake and deride a “truly” left-wing Labour Party as
having no chance of getting into Downing Street, so as to further their own
political ends. But as Massie points out, this is a party that has proven its
ability to shape-shift – abandoning inconvenient rhetoric or policies – “without
embarrassment once they cease to be the best available means of advancing
independence.”

This is the party that once advocated dropping corporate taxes
to encourage business investment to create jobs and spur economic
growth, and
therefore result in more tax revenue to fund public services – a very
“Blairite”
idea which they only threw out in time for the election in May to
prevent
Labour from outflanking it on the issue. This is also a party that laid
out a prospectus for independence based on oil being $110+ per barrel,
but now has gone all but silent on oil because of the recent collapse in
prices. And of course, this is the party that has U-turned on the once in a lifetime, once in a generation referendum.

It is therefore no wonder that
Massie refers to the SNP as a faith-based organization, for it seems that
nothing will dent the enthusiasm for the SNP amongst its loyal supporters or
the wider electorate, who seem to be prepared to give them a third term in
government, despite its less-than-stellar record as a governing party.

Perhaps there is an impulse on
the part of the electorate that says: “Well, we know the SNP aren’t great, but
at least they’re better than the other parties and stand up for Scotland.” On
this point, there is nothing wrong with giving people and organizations the
benefit of the doubt, for it is a natural human impulse to do so, and the SNP’s
emotive rhetoric allows for such feelings.

However, with the stakes being so
high for everyone – whether in Scotland or elsewhere throughout Britain – it is imperative
that the SNP be challenged on its record of the past eight years, and not be
allowed to get away with the standard line of, “well, if only we had powers
over (fill in the blank)” or “only with independence can we (fill in the blank).”
No, the SNP must be challenged on the basis of what it can do now and what it
can do with the powers it will soon have at its disposal, and must face
scrutiny for its proposals and policies. They cannot be assumed to be doing
what’s best for Scotland, and must be taken to task on that assertion.

For too long, the SNP has been
allowed to run rings around everyone else. They have used issues such as
health, education, and poverty as mere talking points for advancing their cause
of independence and to beat down and condemn the pro-Union parties collectively
as “Westminster” – as if to say that they aren’t really Scottish or don’t have
Scotland’s interests at heart. They have accused those who disagree with them
of “scaremongering” and “talking Scotland down”, and they have decided that the media is “biased” for having the audacity to ask difficult questions (sometimes aggressively) of the SNP.

Along the way, they have claimed the mantle
of being the national party of Scotland – almost synonymous with Scotland and
the Scottish people, and they have arguably avoided, or have been
immune to, the kind of scrutiny deserved by a party that has been in government
since 2007.

The opposition parties need to
step up their game in leveling their criticisms against the SNP and also come
up with their own polices to present to the electorate. They should do all they
can to focus attention on the bread-and-butter issues facing the people of
Scotland and explain what they would do with the powers already available and
the powers currently on the way to Holyrood. They must boldly tear down the facade
of the SNP and explain how after almost nine years, the SNP has failed to
improve critical areas of Scottish life, and that blaming Westminster will not
do a thing to improve health outcomes, waiting times, reduce the achievement gap,
increase educational attainment, or reduce poverty. Force them to not just bang
on about poverty, but explain how they will tackle poverty and lift people out
of it in the here and now.

Above this, the opposition pro-Union
parties must develop a confident and compelling narrative of Scotland’s
potential as part of the UK, and how they want what’s best for Scotland within
the greater context of what’s best for the UK as a whole. These things need not
be mutually exclusive, and on the constitution, all parties should commit themselves
to holding a UK Constitutional Convention for a long-term governing settlement
for the entire country, for the debate on constitutional issues have spread
throughout the United Kingdom and have manifested in the folly of EVEL and other short-term political quick-fixes which will not sustain the Union.

The opposition at Holyrood must explain
that independence is not the answer to Scotland’s problems (which are not
mutually exclusive to the problems faced by the UK as a whole), and do all they
can to avoid discussion of a second referendum, which is nothing more than a
distraction from the SNP’s record in government. If they are so trusted, that
trust must be tested with greater and more skeptical scrutiny, and they cannot
continue to get away with the dubious idea that Scotland has to wait for more
powers or independence in order for things to get better. No, Scotland deserves
better now, and can do better with the powers currently available – and soon to
be available – to Holyrood.

In short, the opposition
parties must boldly head into next year’s elections with a determination
to
more efficiently and effectively scrutinize the SNP, take it to task on
its
assertions and rhetoric, and help to move the country forward from
constitutional stagnation and the prospect of an economically damaging “neverendum”. Furthermore, the media needs to pay more
critical attention to the SNP and to particular aspects of its policies,
for in a state of affairs where one political party has become so
dominant – and apparently so trusted –
the media must perform its role in not so much being hostile for the
sake of being hostile, but simply holding the powerful accountable, and
the SNP is quite powerful these days as part of the establishment.The Guardian's aforementioned report on private financing of public projects is a good example of this, but more is needed.

This will be a critical election which may prove to be
consequential for the future of Scotland and the United Kingdom as a
whole, and a serious challenge must be mounted against the SNP based on
its eight year record
in government. If the opposition parties do not do it, and if the media
fails to step up on behalf of the electorate, who will?